In episode 4 of our Energy Renewed podcast series — host Katie Janik, asset management advisor at ICF, speaks to Paul McGuire who was part of the team that created a short circuit program that eventually became Computer Aided Protection Engineering (CAPE) software.

Katie is also joined by Baldwin Yeung, VP of CMY Solutions, who discusses the impact of CAPE software as a foundation for the power industry for grid protection and reliability. The conversation covers the background of this important software and what it contributes to the reliability of the grid.

In this episode, host Caitlin Howley, director of child welfare and education at ICF, examines the issue of racial equity in Appalachian education. The conversation with Director of the Regional Comprehensive Center, Kandace Jones, and First2 Network Program Coordinator, Jade Irving, covers such topics as:

• Why racial equity in education matters so much for the future of Appalachia.
• Current trends and shifting attitudes toward social justice in Appalachia.
• The importance of student exposure and staff training in reaching racial equity.
• The achievement and opportunity gaps in learning—and what to do about them.
• The systemic nature of racial inequality in education, and the systemic solutions required to combat the issue.

NOTE: Jade Irving appears on this podcast in a personal capacity. She does not represent the views of her employer.

In this episode, hosts David Speiser, Ph.D., executive vice president at ICF, and Nicola Dawkins-Lyn, Ph.D., vice president of research science at ICF, explore how public health in the United States links up—and doesn’t—with the larger global health landscape.

The conversation with Director of Emory University’s Global Health Institute Dr. Jeff Koplan covers topics such as:

• The relationship between U.S. healthcare and the nation’s larger patterns of government.
• The ways global health issues affect the United States and highlight the world’s interconnectivity.
• The skills the U.S. public health workforce needs to operate in a global environment.
• The increasingly apparent role of climate change as an influence on public health issues.
• The importance of creative public health messaging in motivating U.S. citizens to stay healthy over time.

In this episode of our podcast, host by Dr. Caitlin Howley , director of child welfare and education at ICF, is joined by Dr. John Ross, one of ICF’s experts on instructional design and blended learning, to discuss the challenges students, parents, and educators across Appalachia are facing as they deal with COVID-19.

They cover topics such as:

• The effect limited resources have on every aspect of the educational experience.
• How different schools and school districts are addressing internet access and barriers to technology.
• What online learning reveals about student engagement prior to the pandemic.
• Positive changes in education that will likely remain long after COVID-19 is no longer a threat.

In this episode of our Climate Risk series, host Brad Hurley, senior communications consultant at ICF, is joined by Jesse Keenan, a social scientist at Tulane University and one of the editors of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System report, to discuss how the private sector is poised to do its part to manage climate risk. The conversation covers topics such as:

• Transitional risks as society shifts to a net zero carbon strategy.
• The wide-reaching impacts of a regional event (e.g. wildfires, drought) on multiple commodity markets.
• How changing consumer preferences amplify uncertainties—and opportunities.
• Steps regulators can take to prepare for risks related to climate change.
• Barriers to financial institutions’ ability to measure their climate risk.

In this episode, host David Speiser, Ph.D., executive vice president at ICF, and Nicola Dawkins-Lyn, Ph.D., MPH, a behavioral scientist at ICF, speak to Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), a national nonprofit organization that tracks, evaluates, and advises public health professionals across the U.S. and its territories to provide guidance and technical assistance.

The conversation covers topics such as:

• What state and territorial public health departments can do to influence social determinants of health.
• The connections between state departments of health and other state government agencies.
• What the public health enterprise can do to unite the country around better public health outcomes.
• The difference, from a state public health leader’s perspective, between working in centralized and decentralized public health systems.

Host David Speiser, Ph.D., executive vice president at ICF, and Nicola Dawkins-Lyn, Ph.D., MPH, a behavioral scientist at ICF, speak to Lori Freeman of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), a membership organization representing the nearly 3,000 local health departments across the country, on the role of the public health system during—and after—the pandemic.

• The conversation covers topics such as:
• Fragmentation and the disparate strategies and priorities of different regions across the U.S.
• Ways to engage with rural public health organizations.
• Equity factors that contribute to a person’s overall health, and systemic barriers health departments must work to remove.
• How to keep population healthy at such a polarized time.
• The crisis of a decreasing public health workforce, especially in the field of nursing.

How can we unlock the power of the private sector to scale up technologies and services that facilitate climate resilience and adaptation?

That’s the question on our minds in this podcast, as we continue to explore climate risk from a variety of perspectives.

Hosted by Brad Hurley, senior communications consultant at ICF; and Peter Schultz, Ph.D., vice president, climate and resilience; this conversation with Jay Koh, co-founder and managing director of The Lightsmith Group, a sustainable private equity firm in New York City, covers topics such as:

• The differences between investing in climate resilience and making climate resilient investments.
• The range of tools—from data and analytics to products and services—that investors use to help assess the evolving challenges that climate change introduces as risks become more complex and move from one area to another.
• How to use investment in the policy context as a tool for supporting sustainable development.
• New frontiers and untapped opportunities in advancing resilience in the private sector.

Why it’s important to create and invest in products and services that are both designed for a more climate-changed future and superior in quality to present-day alternatives.